


The one that got away

by Apartmentfortytwo



Series: A nostalgic indulgence; an unnecessary fluttering of useless lines [1]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Diana deserves a loving girlfriend after this, F/M, Grief, Heartbreak, I wrote this right after watching the movie and forgot to post it, ITS SO ANGSTY I HATE MYSELF, Moving On, Post Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 12:56:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13341708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apartmentfortytwo/pseuds/Apartmentfortytwo
Summary: The aftermaths of loss are always overwhelming.





	The one that got away

**Author's Note:**

> I walked out of that movie completely overwhelmed with Diana/Steve feels. But I loved the ending, I loved that she didn't need a man to save the world???? Somehow it made perfect sense to me, as I know many others loved it too. Here's my lil piece about Diana's grieving process.

Sorrow? No, that wasn’t it. Pain? She had known the physical kind before, but it faded. It diluted as time passed. It went away. However, this burning ache in her chest seemed to become a soaring fire, eating away all of her organs. Tears don’t seem to dull this fire. They don’t put it off, only seem to enhance it. Like gasoline, feeding its strength. And it’s soul wrecking and earth shattering. Because she has felt her feet tremble when the ground beneath her cracked opened, but this was another kind of breaking. She wasn’t able to find her footing, unlike other times. It wasn’t about taking a leap to the closest space available. There was no leaping here. There was no solid ground. It was like floating, without the exciting rush of the first time.   
The wooden floors creaked under her weight, almost too loudly for her liking, but she could get used to it. A Goddess living among mortals, as her friends had put it. Their friends. It was an odd concept to live with, but Diana had gotten used to it. The scent of cologne, his cologne, overpowered her and rendered her thoughts back to their last conversation. 

I have to go.  
I love you.  
Her eyes snapped back to the room in front of her, feeling the tears quickly breaking the tension of her turmoil, only to make that ever present fire even more soaring. Even more present. Each time, she swore she was done crying. And each time, she realized she wasn’t. Not even a little bit done. She seemed to have ocean waves crashing through her broken pieces, innerly dragging her underneath the surface, drowning her.  
Sure, things with Steve had gone pretty fast. But he had been there and he cared. So much that he sacrificed his life and she saw it. She was right there, staring at the red and yellow sky, lit by the explosion. Her heart had twisted and turned, almost too painfully in her chest. But she had no time to grieve, right there. Ares was getting stronger by the minute. She was the one supposed to defeat him. It was her duty. What she was born to do. What she had spent countless hours practicing for.  
But now? Now Ares was dead. And she was left with nothing else but a sense of emptiness. What she thought would be filled with accomplishment, was filled with sorrow, pain and dullness. Because that was the tricky thing about grief. It made you feel and it also numbed you out. It closed you up to the world. It made it difficult to breathe at night, and hard to walk the next morning.  
It was overpowering. More than anger, more than a sense of duty.   
Diana felt completely lost. And confused. The only one who had taken the time to teach her about the world of men, was gone. What was she supposed to do now?  
Etta had respected her privacy. She had given her the key, walked her to the door, and once Diana stepped inside, she had left, with the promise of being there whenever she needed her, at whatever time she did. Etta had been thoughtful enough to leave a little note with indications on how to get to her house, knowing fully well Diana relayed on different references rather than street names. Because when you have lived in an island for so long, that’s how you orientate yourself. That, and the stars. But the stars were no longer shining on Diana’s sky. It was rather stormy, and cloudy. And Etta wanted to desperately help her. Aid her. In the little time she had known Diana, she had grown to care for her. Hence why she had made sure to show her to Steve’s apartment, knowing no one else would care for it better than the princess of Themyscira herself.   
An odd sense of belonging filled Diana, and all she could do was run her fingers over the dusty shelves. No one had cleaned in a few weeks.   
Understandable.  
Steve was dead.  
He had died.  
Etta had done a fairly good job keeping it tidy. But still.  
Diana wanted to remove it all from its shelves, wanted to redecorate, to make it more of her own.   
But at the same time, she found herself drawn to the pictures framed around the house. Pictures of Steve and other military guys. It brought a small, simple smile from the goddess, who ran her index over his smiling face.   
That’s how she planned on remembering him.  
Smiling.   
Because if he was alive and he saw her crying like this, he wouldn’t be too pleased. She knew that. That’s why she always put on the bravest of smiles, only to fall apart alone. To break, suffer and cry on her own. No one else deserved to see her so broken. So desperate for his touch again. For one last glance into his blue eyes.  
His bed was comfortable, like his arms that night. It smelled too much like him, and a few tears made their way down her face, because how was she supposed to live here? How was she supposed to take a space that wasn’t even her own to begin with. How?  
The question echoed through her mind, rolling through, exhausting every option she could come across.  
She’d have to live here until time told her it was rightful to leave.   
The sun flickered through the opened shades, cascading over her body, warming the skin that it could touch. And she smiled. Succumbing to morpheus. Letting it overpower her exhausted body. Because there was no longer a war she had to stop. The world was resting easy. And for now, all she could do was miss the fleeting feeling of what started as a friendship, evolved to romance, only to end in tragedy, in the span of just a few days.


End file.
